Hair And Square
by MiladyGirl
Summary: A series of too-long-to-be-called-drabbles drabbles revolving around hair. All BAU team members from season 8-9 get their own separate chapter.
1. By a hair

**A/N**

While standing in the empty wasteland between finishing my last fic and outlining my next (which might be longer than I initially planned), I suddenly and for seemingly no reason at all got this idea for a series of short separate fics centred around hair. Yeah, that's right, hair.

I'm still clinging to the team as of season 8-9, though the individual fics doesn't necessarily take place during season 8-9. All seven BAU members will get their own chapter. First out is David Rossi.

* * *

"Sorry I'm late," Rossi said, plopped down on a chair and flipped the case file open in in one single movement. "What have we got?"

"A series of abductions of Caucasian males, mid- to late 30s…" Hotch began, but Rossi only listened with one ear. Most part of his mind was still back at the hotel room with Erin Strauss, where he had enjoyed a lunch hour he would not forget anytime soon. Considering how fast he had to get out of there and back to Quantico, he was surprised he had managed to get all his clothes back on without getting anything back-to-front or inside-out. Except for possibly his socks, but nobody here would see those either way.

He smirked when he thought about the fact that Erin would have an even harder time trying to get _her_ clothing back on flawlessly, especially since her pantyhose had been torn, and he had absolutely no idea where her underwear had gone.

So far nobody had found out about their secret affair, although it had been going on for almost three months by now. Not even Hotch knew about it yet. He supposed he would have to tell his old friend at some point, but he was still too caught up in the moment and didn't want to share it with anyone else. It would ruin the magic.

He realised everyone was quiet and looked at him expectantly.

"Um, yeah, it seems like an unusual case," he muttered.

"Rossi?" Morgan said. "Something you wanna tell us?"

"About what?"

"The origin of that long blonde hair on your lapel, perhaps?"

He looked down and cursed inwardly.

"I'd rather not," he said, trying to sound indifferent, but the calmness of his voice was contradicted by his frantic hurry to get it off.

JJ turned to Morgan.

"You owe me 10 bucks. I told you he and Strauss wouldn't be able to keep it secret for longer than three months tops."

"Wait! Not only did you guys _know_ , you placed _bets_ on it?!" Rossi said.

"Why not? _You_ make bets out of everything," Morgan said as he took out his wallet. Rossi leaned his head back and sighed.

"I've had a bad influence on you guys."

"Yes you have," Hotch said and shook his head. But Rossi could see that the corners of his old friend's mouth were twitching a little. He smiled himself and pushed personal matters aside. They had a case to work.


	2. Going grey

Alex Blake wasn't the type of woman who spent a lot of money on makeup, skin products, clothes or jewellery, but there was one feature in her appearance that she spent a lot of money on. Her hair. Special shampoos and conditioners, vitamin treatments, very particular expensive brands of hairsprays that didn't do damage to the hair but rather preserved it. She had however never dyed it, not once in her life. Even the highlights she sometimes sported were natural, brought on by the summer sun. And she had always told herself that she wouldn't mind going grey, as long as she kept the thick, shiny quality of her hair.

But when she had found her first grey hair that morning (and had pulled it out by the root and thrown it in the trashcan), she had been more unsettled than she ever thought possible.

In fact, she had been so distracted that when driving to work she had missed a turn, leading her to make a highly illegal U-turn on a busy street, and, when people honked at her, she even raised her middle finger in response. It was not at all like her, but this little onset of road rage was almost therapeutic, and made her feel a lot better for a while. She couldn't shake it however, the thought kept sneaking its way back into her mind. _Grey hairs_. Okay, so it _did_ come rather late to her, which she should be grateful for, and it _was_ inevitable, and there _were_ ways to keep it from showing… but it still bothered her.

JJ, reading the newspaper on her phone next to her, snorted.

"Did you know there's a fourth book to that bondage series now? It's called Grey."

Blake pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Please just shut up, JJ."

"Why, what did I say? Bondage? Grey?"

Blake groaned and hid her face in both hands.

"I found my first grey hair this morning, okay?"

"Your _first_?!"

"Hey, I don't like your tone. It's implying that I'm old."

JJ patted her shoulder.

"I didn't mean it that way. I found my first grey when Henry was six months, okay? I haven't gotten any more of them since, though." She tilted her head and looked at her co-worker. "Besides, you would probably look pretty amazing as a silver fox lady."

"Not likely, but thank you, JJ. I needed to hear that."

She turned back to the computer screen and as she did, JJ spotted another silvery hair in the midst of the shifting shades of black coffee and red copper. And she smiled to herself, deciding that Blake didn't need to deal with the shock of grey number two on the same day. So she kept her mouth shut. But her eyes kept wandering back to the thin line of perfect silver and she thought - in awe:

 _Leave it to Alex Blake, the eternal perfectionist, to even get a perfect shade of_ grey _in her hair._


	3. Beards and bets

Hotch had taken two weeks off to spend time with Jack - Cruz had encouraged his decision, given that he had even more vacation days than anyone else in Quantico - but on this first day back at work he was sure to be there long before anyone else. So he was already seated at the roundtable when Blake arrived. She strode in, put her bag down and said "Morning, Hotch," without really looking at him. Then she did, and immediately did a double take. Hotch noticed, but pretended he didn't.

Blake sat down and kept biting the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from saying something, though she was itching to. Hotch calmly went on reading his papers, not paying any attention to her attention. Eventually she couldn't be quiet any longer.

"No shave November?"

"Something like that."

"Fine, keep it to yourself," she said. "It does suit you though."

"Thank you. I haven't had a beard since a brief period of time in the 80's," he said in a contemplative voice and ran his palm over his chin "It feels a bit odd."

"Hm," Blake said. She didn't want to snoop, but she was curious.

About five minutes later, Reid and Morgan came in at the same time, stopped at the same time, and said;

"Ooookay?"

at the same time. Hotch ignored them altogether, so they turned to Blake. She looked back, smiled and shrugged. Then JJ came in, walked straight into Reid who stood in her way, and took a staggering step to the side, getting ready to scold him for blocking her way - and just fell silent. She too turned to Blake, who obviously had been there longer than the men, but Blake's blank expression told her she didn't know anything more than the rest of them.

Then Rossi came in. Upon seeing Hotch's new bearded look, he began to chuckle heartily, shaking his head.

"Never thought you'd do it," he said.

"A bet is a bet," Hotch muttered. "But I'm shaving this off as soon as I get home today."

"Aw," JJ said. "I thought it looked nice."

"So did I," Blake said. Rossi looked a bit deflated.

"Looks like I just made you popular with the ladies. That was not my intention."

"I bet," Hotch replied. "No, wait. I don't. I don't bet on anything with you again."

"Just out of curiosity," Blake said, turning to Rossi. "If you had lost this bet, whatever it was, what would you have had to do?"

"That is classified," Rossi said.

"He would have had to come to work wearing hip hop clothes and greet everyone with 'yo'," Hotch said.

JJ scoffed loudly.

"He never would have dared to do that anyway."

"Yes I would," Rossi said.

"I bet you wouldn't."

"You're on. Aw, JJ! That wasn't fair play!"

"Too late now," JJ said and winked at him.

"Nice going, Jennifer Jareau," Morgan said and tipped an imaginary hat in her direction. The rest of them all grinned exceptionally smug grins. Except for Rossi. He glared at Hotch.

"How come every time I win, it backfires?"

"Because you don't know how to stop in time," Hotch replied and stroke his beard. As odd as it felt, he kind of liked it. Maybe he would keep it for the time being.


	4. Pampered to perfection

There is nothing wrong with wanting to take care of yourself and make sure you look your best, even if you happen to be a guy. And there is nothing wrong with pampering yourself a little, even if you happen to be a guy.

However, if you're a tough FBI agent, it can be a bit embarrassing to admit it, so Derek Morgan was happy to let this co-workers believe he looked like this without putting in any effort. Well, he didn't technically put too much effort into it to be honest; he put in money.

He leaned back in the chair and ran his hand over his newly shaved head.

"It's great Lynne, thank you," he said to the hairdresser.

"You want me to do your eyebrows next?" she asked, and he nodded. She picked up the tweezers and began plucking his eyebrows. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the attention and the knowledge that it was going to be well done. He went to this hair salon regularly, and he was always pleased with their work.

"Ha! I _knew_ you couldn't possibly look that good naturally, Eyebrows!" a very, _very_ familiar voice called out from somewhere behind him. His eyes opened in shock and he met Penelope Garcia's amused gaze in the mirror. His favourite baby girl was grinning from ear to ear.

"I'm just enhancing what nature gave me, just like you do, mama," he shot back, not wanting to show her how unsettled her sudden appearance made him.

"Nice try Hot Chocolate, it's still on video," she said and held up her cell phone.

"No, come on, that does _not_ go on Youtube!" he called out.

"Of course not. It's private. I get that. It only goes to the cell phones belonging to the rest of the ridiculously attractive crime fighters of our little family," Garcia said and tapped her phone a couple of times. "There."

"You did _not_ just do that," he said, knowing perfectly well that she had indeed just done that. He wasn't going to admit that he was relieved. If he had to choose between the team knowing, and the entire Youtube knowing, he would pick the team any day.

But this called for revenge, and he wondered if he had something on Garcia… oh, right. It wasn't a video, but there _were_ photos of Penelope Garcia dressed up as Tweety Bird for a masquerade some time ago. He returned her sly grin with one of his own, and Garcia's eyes widened as her grin faded.

"Why do I get the feeling you're plotting revenge?"

"Because I am, hot stuff. Because I am."


	5. Spiked

**A/N**

I was seriously going to save Reid's chapter to last, but I have gotten several friendly, um, I don't want to call them badgerings, but… very verbal encouragements, to post that chapter, so okay. :P

* * *

Spencer Reid was tired about always getting picked on about his hair. Of course, his mother and his aunt wouldn't get to see this, but it would probably shut the BAU up - no haircut of his would ever look odd again, not compared to this. He had been up for hours perfecting the punk-inspired spikes and he was pretty content with the result. He couldn't wait to see the reactions from the team.

* * *

"Hi guys," he said as he strode in to the roundtable as the last of them. They all looked up… and then just kept looking.

Hotch's frown was so deep you could hide a coin in it.

JJ's eyes grew larger and larger until she looked like an anime character.

Garcia's mouth was the shape of a perfect "O". She took off her glasses, cleaned them very carefully and put them back on, as if she expected the view to change if she did, all the while being uncharacteristically speechless.

Rossi face-palmed.

Morgan's jaw seemed to have come loose from its hinges, and like Garcia, he was at a loss of something funny to say.

Blake blinked a couple of times and then took great care to look everywhere except at Reid, struggling to keep herself from laughing. He looked like an awkward teenage boy trying to be rebellious, and she found it beyond adorable - and hilarious.

"So, what do you guys think? Huh? Not exactly 'boy band' anymore, huh?" Reid said. If this even _was_ Reid, and not some shape shifting alien posing as him, which was starting to sound like a pretty plausible explanation.

Nobody answered him.

Hotch's frown had reached such depths you could probably hide a whole pirate treasure there and never find it again. Blake took a sip of coffee and immediately learned firsthand why people don't ingest beverages by snorting them when Hotch, very matter-of-factly, delivered the verdict:

"You look like a hedgehog."

Reid zeroed in on his boss.

"I'm _punk_."

"Not with that many individual, tiny spikes, you're not," Hotch replied and Blake had to give up her desperate attempts to swallow the drink she was currently choking on, and simply spat the coffee back into her mug. Rossi removed his hand from his face, glanced at Reid's hair, and mumbled some words - possibly a prayer - in Italian while shaking his head a little.

"Can I touch them? I have to touch them. Are they sharp?" Garcia asked, finally recovering enough to speak again. She pinched one of the spikes. "Eew. It's like, they're almost sticky from the wax still. Feel it," she commanded Morgan, who didn't need to be told twice.

"Heh, that just feels weird, man," Morgan chuckled. "I'd like to see you try and deliver a profile looking like this."

"He won't get to try it. Go wash that stuff out, you can't talk to the families looking like that," Hotch said.

"Oh congratulations and good luck with that," JJ chimed in. "You can't just wash wax out of your hair very easily."

A look of horror flashed across Reid's face as he began having serious doubts about the splendour of this idea.

"No? I thought it was like hair mousse."

Garcia grinned.

"No worries, Oh Prince of Punkhogs, my magic powers will get you fixed up in no time. Come on."

"I'd like to _keep_ my hair though," Reid said nervously as he followed suit. "You won't have to shave it, will you? Please tell me you won't?"

"Shut up and walk, my sweet."

Reid shut up and walked, sending a helpless glance towards the rest of his team. This was _definitely_ not one of his most genius ideas.

* * *

Only a few seconds later, a high-pitched scream could be heard from down the corridor.

" _HOTCH! BLAKE! ANYONE! HELP ME!"_

"He's on his own now," Hotch said, and Blake nodded. Then they made the mistake of looking at each other, and both burst out laughing. It took some time before the rest of the team joined in - probably because the shock of Hotch laughing came so soon after the shock of seeing Reid in a punk hairstyle - but once they did, they were at it for several minutes before they could get themselves back together again.


End file.
